There may have been reviews of the popular work, Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer, but I'm sorely hoping none have been like mine yet. I'll let you prepare yourself, though; you might want to take a deep breath.
First of all, for anybody who hasn't read it or heard of it, Twilight is about a girl named Bella Swan who, in short, meets a vampire named Edward. They fall in love. Typical of this kind of romance, problems arise because he's a vampire. The series seems to go on for at least two thousand pages, but that's the basic outline no matter what people will tell you.
I picked up this book because that idea sounds incredible -- not original (you could find work like that by any aspiring or published writer) but, in my mind, I thought, “It's published -- it's gotta be good.”
I was wrong.
Bella Swan is a run-of-the-mill Mary-Sue whose flaw seems to be… clumsiness. And, as many fans of the book will cry, love and being human. Those aren't flaws, though. It's called human nature. Unless Bella's some… alien or something. Edward is perfect. He's beautiful (constantly referred to as ‘marble'), smart, rich, drives nice cars and, to top it off, he's a vampire. But Edward is so busy wallowing in self-disgust because he thinks he's an abomination who doesn't deserve to be with Bella because he may bite her, her scent is too alluring -- all these things. Bella blindly loves him because he's good looking, and he's drawn to her because of her scent. They never, once, have a real conversation to talk about anything other than their obsessions with each other. They just suddenly fall in love. Serious love -- the kind you see in matured adults who've been dating for years and are going to get married.
I couldn't believe it.
Alright, I told myself. But he's still a vampire. Wrong. Edward is a vampire who doesn't drink human blood. He drinks animal blood. That should be understandable, but he also possesses no other abilities exclusive to vampirism. Holy water, crosses, churches, wooden stakes, sunlight -- nope. As a matter of fact, in sunlight he sparkles. I couldn't believe it. But Twilight fans love it. These vampires may as well be sparkling Chupacabras.
Time to get into it, though. My opinion? This book is terrible. Bella Swan constantly needs Edward because she's always tripping into trouble -- be it a van or what seemed like a gang of rapists in an alleyway. He dictates what she should or shouldn't do for her safety. When Edward leaves her (for her own safety), she falls into a serious depression but has another boy, Jacob, to cling to. Unsurprisingly she falls in love with him, too. Basically, she can't get by without some man's big strong arms. She's also very flat, and even though Meyer wants us to think she's a sort of shy bookworm, it doesn't work. She's just a Sue. A Mary Sue.
Then there's the pedophilia argument -- that Edward, who is about 107, is in love with a seventeen year old girl. Even though he's physically trapped as a seventeen year old, you'd think he matured mentally. Bella and Edward also have a child who is destined to fall in love with Jacob. I'd hate to fall in love with my mother's ex-boyfriend; that's sort of… strange.
Not to mention the writing, which really stuck out to me at first. Stephenie Meyer's did her duty as a writer very poorly. In a 500 page book with about 100 pages of actual plot, the other 400 were just Bella and Edward fawning over each other. If this had been a piece on character development, I'd understand, but it wasn't. At all. It's also obvious Meyer is an amateur -- she abused the thesaurus and made what is obviously a self-insert the main character. That's usually the calling card for a Mary Sue, by the way. Bella looks like Meyer (albeit younger) and, according to Meyer, even has events based on Meyer's life experiences. Meyer is living through her young, cardboard character. People will argue that she's got a degree in English, but writing isn't something that you can be taught. Like many creative talents, writing abilities are something you have developed from birth -- not in a course.
The fact that nobody's brought up the anti-feminist overtones or pedophilic implications baffles me. Where are the media critics who attacked Rowling for wizards, or said that Pokemon were Japanese propaganda? The ones who throw a fit over Bert and Ernie being gay? Even if nobody will attack the book's strange themes, what about the fact that it's just bad writing? Meyer can't write but she sells millions of copies to dreamy girls and thirty year old women who can't find true love? Why does it seem like the only people who are aware of this are, like, working underground? Is this some strange propaganda or takeover in action? I just don't get it. Younger fans think that people against the book just don't get it. On the contrary, I think they just don't get it. Try arguing with a fan of Twilight and see how many substantial comebacks you get. How many mention that you're just not in touch with love or that you just ‘don't want to like it because it's cool.' If you get a good argument, see how many will flat out not answer.
A whole lot of them.
To any adults out there -- who are completely competent -- pick up the book. Read it. Know that, if you gave your daughter that twenty dollars to go into Barnes